Milltown Cemetery

The entrance to Milltown Cemetery: 546 Falls Road

Milltown Cemetery

Milltown Cemetery (Irish: Reilig Bhaile an Mhuilinn) is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway. Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 and there are now approximately 200,000 of Belfast's citizens buried there.^[1] Most of those buried there are Irish Catholic. Within the cemetery there are three large sections of open space, each about the size of a football field, designated as "poor ground". Over 80,000 people are buried in the cemetery's poor grounds, many of whom died in the flu pandemic of 1919.^[2] Since 2007, the 55-acre (220,000 m²) cemetery has undergone extensive work, reversing years of neglect.^[3]

Republicanism

The cemetery, located in the heart of West Belfast has become synonymous with Irish republicanism. Irish Republican Army volunteer Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike on 5 May 1981, is buried in the cemetery. Fellow hunger-strikers, Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell and Pat McGeown (who died a number of years later from ill-health brought about by the hunger strike) are also buried there. In total, 77 IRA volunteers are buried in what is known as the 'New Republican Plot', a further 34 volunteers are buried in what is known as the County Antrim Memorial Plot and which was used between 1969 and 1972.^[4] Throughout the cemetery, many more IRA volunteers are buried in family graves. These include Tom Williams, who was executed in Crumlin Road Prison on 2 September 1942. Williams' body lay in a prison grave until January 2000, when a campaign, by the National Graves Association, Belfast, to have his remains re-interred in Milltown was successful.^[5] Members of the INLA and Workers' Party are also buried there.^[2]

Milltown was the scene of the Milltown Cemetery attack on 16 March 1988, when loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone attacked a funeral, killing three mourners as IRA volunteers Dan McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, were being buried. All three were killed by members of the SAS at Gibraltar during Operation Flavius.

Notable Graves

Milltown Cemetery has approximately 50,000 graves within its 55-acre (220,000 m²) site. Listed below a number of graves which are of significant interest to tourists coming to the cemetery. Although the cemetery itself does not conduct its own official tours there are a number of tour companies which focus their tours on around the following monuments and persons.

1. Harbinson Plot
William Harbinson died while interned in Belfast Prison and was buried at Portmore, Ballinderry.^[6] A Celtic cross was erected to his memory, and that of other republicans who where imprisoned in County Antrim jails, in Milltown cemetery in 1912. This plot contains the remains of 5 IRA volunteers:

• Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Rory O’Connor were captured when Free State forces attacked the Four Courts in Dublin. Without charge or trial, on 8 December 1922, they were executed by firing squad. In 1924 McKelvey was re-interred in Milltown.
• Sean McCartney was shot dead by British Forces while on active service on 8 May 1921 in the Lappinduff Mountains, County Cavan. He was a member of a Belfast Flying Column which operated there.
• Terence Perry, in 1939, as part of the IRA’s Expeditionary Force, volunteered for active service in England. Captured, he was imprisoned in Parkhurst Prison, where he died on 7 July 1942.
• Sean Gaffney, an IRA volunteer was imprisoned on the prison ship Al Rawdah, moored at Strangford Lough. On the 18 November 1940 he died while still in prison.
• Seamus ‘Rocky’ Burns, while interned, escaped from Derry jail. He was in Belfast when he was shot by RUC personnel in Castle Street. He died on 12 February 1944.^[7]

2. County Antrim Memorial Plot Unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the plot honours the county’s republican dead.^[8] 34 IRA volunteers who died while involved in paramilitary activity during the late 1960s and early 1970s are buried there.

3. New Republican Plot
In 1972, the National Graves Association purchased the ground which would become the New Republican Plot, the first burials here took place in July of that year. This Plot contains the remains of 77 IRA Volunteers who have died on Active Service or as a result of imprisonment or assassination, not only in Belfast but those killed as far away as Gibraltar. Here are buried those volunteers who died as a result of hunger striking.^[7]

4. Winifred Carney Grave
Winifred Carney, a lifelong socialist died on the 21st November 1943, was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan. She was a comrade and secretary to Commadante James Connolly. Winifred was a combatant during the 1916 Easter Rising and was the last woman to leave the G.P.O.^[7]

5. Sean McCaughey Grave

6. INLA Plot
The INLA Plot contains the remains of ten members of the Irish National Liberation Army

7. Giuseppe Conlon Grave

8. Gerard Dillon Grave

9 Cathal O'Byrne

Image gallery

• Notable graves
• 

  Harbinson Plot

• 

  County Antrim Memorial Plot

• 

  Grave of Winifred Carney, Socialist and combatant in GPO, Dublin 1916

• 

  Grave of Ned Trodden

• 

  Grave of volunteer Sean Martin

• 

  Grave of volunteer Sean Gaynor

• 

  Photograph taken prior to restoration work

• 

  Photograph of New Republican Plot

• 

  New Republican Plot. Plaque dedicated to the ten men who died on Hunger Strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981

• 

  New Republican Plot. Plaque on the grave of volunteer Bobby Sands

• 

  Grave of IRA volunteers Dan McCann, Mairead Farrell and Sean Savage who were killed in Gibraltar in 1988

• 

  Grave of volunteer Kieran Doherty who died on Hunger strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981

• 

  County Antrim Memorial Plot

• 

  County Antrim Memorial Plot

• 

  INLA Plot

• 

  Official IRA/Workers' Party Plot

• 

  Workers' Party Plot

• 

  Celtic Cross at the entrance of the cemetery dedicated to the first priests buried there

References

1. ^ Cemetery records
2. ^ ^{a b} Cemetery Records
3. ^ http://www.irishnews.com/searchlog.asp?reason=denied_empty&script_name=/pageacc.asp&path_info=/pageacc.asp&sid=581065&tser1=ser&par=ben
4. ^ National Graves Association leaflet 'Milltown Cemetery'
5. ^ news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern.../431585.stm
6. ^ http://joegraham.rushlightmagazine.com/williamharbinson.html
7. ^ ^{a b c} National Graves Association, Belfast
8. ^ Antrim's Patriot Dead 1797-1953 by National Graves Association, Belfast, Pages 7, & 9

Coordinates: 54°35′17″N 5°58′34″W / 54.588°N 5.976°W / 54.588; -5.976